Good Mic Technique for Singers

Hi I’m Abram with 30 Day Singer and this lesson is all about proper mic technique for beginning singers.

At some point as a singer you will probably sing with a microphone either on a stand or held in your hand. This is usually a dynamic microphone that has a cone like this then it is a dynamic microphone. Condenser mics pick up a larger area and so there is generally less technique required for this. 

Rule # 1: Hand Hold Horizontally

Never hold the mic vertically like an ice cream cone. If you sing like this, then your voice travels over the mic and barely picks up the sound in a clear way. Instead hold it horizontal with the cone facing your mouth. You are also going to want to make sure your mouth is about 1 or 2 fists away from the head of the microphone. 

There is a classic look of tilting the head all the way up and singing. Generally this is poor technique all around and should be avoided. We do have some range of motion here for some stylized belting, but usually it happens more as a habit. Avoid this. Also, if your mic is in a stand, don’t reach your head and neck out of alignment. Instead, adjust or have the stage manager or audio engineer adjust the microphone so it is level with your mouth. 

Rule #2: Sing Normally

When singing with amplification it's really easy to under support as the microphone is doing a lot of this work for you. What ends up happening is that we can get into the habit of straining when reaching for high notes for that reason. Appropriate breath  support doesn't necessarily mean a louder sound. The best thing to do is make sure that you have proper levels with how loud your voice is and how much the mic is picking you up. We can hear this best through a monitor which is any device that is playing what the mic is picking up from your voice back to you. Being able to hear this clearly is very important so ask about it and make sure your engineer changes the levels to what works best for you. 

If your mic is “hot” we mean it’s picking up a lot, maybe too much of the sound coming into it. This can be mouth sounds and other things we don’t want to have in the sound, which can make us overly careful or tense. The other side is a mic that isn’t picking up enough sound to properly level you with other instruments or reacht the number of people required for your venue. Don’t strain or shout to be heard. Instead, the engineer can adjust this to find the right volume where you are singing normally.

Rule #3: Mixing by Proximity

This is where you can add some extra technique that we can practice together. When singing soft and intimately we can bring the mic close to our mouth. If you bring it too close then it will distort the sound. On the other side if you are about to belt something out you can pull the mic away to control the sound a bit in the moment. This should be secondary to Rule #1, meaning we use Rule #2 as a way to more subtly adjust the sound of our voice. 

Exercise 1: Weyah, Nah Nah Nah (2,3,2,1..1,3,5—)

Let's practice this with a singing exercise. The first part will be soft and mellow. Singing with the mic closer like this will help pick up details like vocal fry and subtle inflections. The second part will be loud and big. Singing with the mic farther away like this will make sure you don’t max out the speaker or hurt anybody's ears too much. It will also help you make a more comfortable fully supported sound. Alright let’s try this out a few times in different places in our range. 

Awesome! Try this out next time you sing with a mic and as always practice it a bit on your own before if possible.

0:00 - Intro

0:36 - Rule 1

1:31 - Rule 2

2:42 - Rule 3

3:21 - Exercise

5:35 - Outro